Bari Weiss' outreach to CBS News staff raising hackles in week one

Concerns about Weiss’ leadership, and the state of CBS News in general, have flooded the press since her official hiring. “It’s been 18 months of lurching through reported mergers, legal threat, lawsuits, settlements, firings, yet another round of new leaders,” an employee complained to The Guardian. “Here we go again—having to introduce and prove ourselves to new leaders with more perceptions and less actual understanding of the ebbs and flows of this organization.”

And Weiss’ outreach to the team so far has not been met warmly. The Independent reports that after The Free Press founder ended her first editorial meeting with “Let’s do the fucking news,” staffers were rolling their eyes. One employee’s reaction to the rallying cry observed Weiss was “cosplaying as a broadcast journalist,” while another described her remarks as “cringey movie references and a half-assed pep talk.” One source told The Independent that CBS News is “not a welcoming place for outsiders,” and “the idea that somebody that we don’t want is going to come in here and somehow manage to survive this is, I think, laughable.”

Of course, the negative opinions on Bari Weiss (“A throwing up emoji is not enough of a reflection of the feelings in here,” one staffer told The Guardian) are not entirely unanimous. “The leadership and vision is welcomed,” another CBS News source told Puck’s Dylan Byers. “We’ve had none—zero. Our past presidents were paper pushers who managed up well but knew nothing about journalism.” Another said, “People want to see CBS succeed, and having a new force come in isn’t the worst thing. Anyone who is acting like CBS News internally is aghast is not capturing the actual mood. There’s not celebrations across the board, but those who know her and her work believe this is someone who is trying to come in and change it. And her journalistic principles hit a good note with a lot of people.”

Weiss laid out those principles in her initial memo to staff upon hiring, a list of “core values” that includes “Journalism that is fair, fearless, and factual” and “Journalism that uses all of the tools of the digital era,” among other things. She described herself as “profoundly honored” to be joining the company and professed a goal to make “CBS News the most trusted news organization in America and the world.” She wrote, “I’ll approach it the way any reporter would—with an open mind, a fresh notebook, and an urgent deadline.”